Network Director Release Notes, Release 1.5

• Overview
• New Features for Network Director in Release 1.5
• Junos Space Network Management Platform Requirements
• Supported Platforms for Network Director in Release 1.5
• Installation Instructions for Network Director Application and Network Director API, Release 1.5
• Junos Space DMI Schema Requirements for Network Director
• Installation and Upgrade Scripts
• Operational Notes on General Interface Use
• Operational Notes on Device Discovery and Management
• Known Issues in Network Director Release 1.5
• Known Limitations in Network Director Release 1.5

Overview

Junos Space Network Director enables unified management of Juniper Networks EX Series Ethernet Switches, EX Series Ethernet switches with ELS support, QFX Series switches, QFabric, wireless LAN devices, and VMware vCenter devices in your network. It provides full network life cycle management by simplifying the discovery, configuration, visualization, monitoring, and administration of large networks containing physical and virtual devices. The software images for Network Director, Network Director API, Junos Space Management Platform, additional scripts, Network Director API Reference documentation, and the release notes for Network Director Release 1.5 are available at: Junos Space and Junos Space Network Director Download page.

New Features for Network Director in Release 1.5

• Virtualization support—Beginning with Release 1.5, you can use Network Director to discover and monitor VMware vCenter servers, virtual switches, and virtual machines that are part of your virtual network. You can also consistently and seamlessly orchestrate the physical components of your network. You can also view the connectivity details between the physical network and the virtual network by using the View Virtual Network Connectivity feature.
• Support for data center devices—Network Director now supports the data center switches QFX3500 and QFX3600 and also QFabric systems (QFX3000-G and QFX3000-M). In addition to this, Network Director automatically converts the EX4500 and EX4550 switches in your network to data center switches that support all the data center functionality. You can discover, manage, and monitor the data center devices within your network by using Network Director. In addition to this, Network Director enables you to perform the following important tasks on your data center devices:
  • Use the Port Conversion feature to configure the 40-Gigabit Ethernet QSFP+ ports on QFX Series devices to operate as four 10-Gigabit Ethernet (xe) ports or one 40-Gigabit Ethernet (XLE/FTE) port.
  • Set up and monitor node aliases, node groups, and control plane network of a QFabric system. Node aliases replace the hardware serial numbers of components, making it easier to identify system devices and simplifying configuration tasks. Node groups help you combine multiple node devices into a single virtual entity within the QFabric system to enable redundancy and scalability at the edge of the data center. The control plane network connects the Director group to the management ports of the node and Interconnect devices.
  • Configure Multichassis Link Aggregation Groups (MC LAGs)—MC LAG is a type of LAG with constituent ports that terminate on separate chassis, thereby providing node-level redundancy. MC LAG is supported on QFX Series devices. MC LAG is applicable only for QFX3500 and QFX3600 switches.
  • Use the fabric analyzer to analyze a QFabric system and generate a report.

  For details about these data center devices, see QFX Series Switch and QFabric documentation.

• Support for new EX Series Ethernet switches and Enhanced Layer 2 Switching (ELS) support—In addition to the EX Series switches that are already supported, Network Director now enables you to discover, manage, and monitor Juniper Networks EX9200 and EX4300 Ethernet Switches. EX9200 switches support current and planned SDN interfaces and protocols, offering the flexibility and scalability to increase business agility by simplifying the deployment and operation of cloud applications, server virtualization, and rich media collaboration tools across campuses and data centers. The EX4300 switches provide connectivity for high-density environments and scalability for growing networks. These switches can be deployed wherever you need high density of Gigabit Ethernet ports (24 to 48 ports) or redundancy. For details about these switches, see EX Series Ethernet Switches documentation.
• Network Director API—Network Director now provides users with a set of software orchestration services that exposes a set of Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs. The REST APIs enable network management functions, including:
  • Virtualization of cloud and datacenter operations
  • Provisioning of secure multitenant networks in a shared network infrastructure
  • Support for Layer 2, Layer 3, security, and Internet services
  • Support for a single point of integration with external cloud and datacenter orchestration tools

  Before you install or test the Network Director API, see Junos Space Network Management Platform Requirements.

• Topology view—Topology enables you to view all the discovered devices in your network, overlaid on a map. You can use the Topology view to zoom in or out of a site or a building. You can navigate to the level of racks located in a lab in a building. You can also see the connectivity between a device and its immediate neighbors, alarms details, and so on. Topology enables network administrators in debugging, troubleshooting, planning and executing administrative actions effectively with the complete network in mind.
• Zero touch provisioning for switches—Zero touch provisioning enables you to provision new Juniper Networks switches in your network automatically, without manual intervention. When you physically connect a switch to the network and boot it with a default factory configuration, it attempts to upgrade the Junos OS automatically and autoinstall a configuration file from the network. After a successful upgrade, the switch sends out the trap message to Network Director to announce that a new switch has been deployed in the network. If the trap message is successfully received, Network Director adds the switch to the Network Director’s inventory. This eliminates the need to manually discover new devices that are added to your switching network.
• Support for JunosV Wireless LAN Controller—In addition to the wireless LAN controllers supported in earlier releases, Network Director now supports the virtualized wireless LAN controller, JunosV Wireless LAN Controller. The next-generation Juniper Networks JunosV Wireless LAN Controller is a virtual controller that uses a cloud-based architecture with physical access points. The current functionality of a physical controller is available on the virtual controller, and the virtual controller can support up to 256 access points.
• Custom groups—Network Director now enables you to create a device group; add switches, controllers, and access points to the group; and name that group. By creating such custom device groups, you can configure multiple devices simultaneously—you can create multiple custom groups and directly associate devices at any level. You can also configure a custom group to automatically add devices after discovery in a hierarchy of up to eight levels deep.
• Changes to profiles—With the introduction of the new device families to be managed, Network Director now enables you to create profiles for these device families. These profiles can then be deployed on devices that belong to these device families. In addition to the profile configurations supported on the non-ELS platforms of EX Series switches in earlier releases, the following profiles now support configurations for the new device families—EX Series switches with ELS (EX4300, EX9200 switches) and Data Center devices (QFX3500, QFX3600, EX4500, EX4550 switches, QFabric systems) as listed:
  • Device Common Settings profile—EX Series switches with ELS, Data Center devices
  • VLAN profile—EX Series switches with ELS, Data Center devices
  • Port profile—EX Series switches with ELS, Data Center devices
  • Access profile—EX Series switches with ELS, Data Center devices
  • Authentication profile—EX Series switches with ELS, Data Center devices
  • Filter profile—EX Series switches with ELS, QFX Series switches, Data Center devices
  • CoS profile—EX Series switches with ELS, Data Center devices
  • Radius profile—Applicable for all devices
  • LDAP profile—EX Series switches with ELS and Wireless devices
  • Fabric profile—New profile for QFX Series devices. Fabric profile contains configuration settings for a gateway Fibre Channel (FC) fabric. You assign Fabric profiles to QFX Series devices that act as a FCoE-FC gateway, to configure gateway FC fabrics.
  • FC Gateway Service profile—New profile for QFX Series devices. Gateway service profile supports configuring FC gateways on QFX devices. An FC gateway creates associations that connect FCoE devices with converged network adapters (CNAs) on the Ethernet network to an FC switch on the Fibre Channel network.
• Port groups—You can configure port groups for your campus switching devices. Port groups enable you to combine ports on various EX Series switches and configure them simultaneously, thereby simplifying the task of port configuration.
• Profile cloning—You can now create a replica of a profile in Network Director by using the profile cloning functionality. The profile cloning functionality enables users to clone a profile and make changes to the configuration without altering the profile that is being used by a device or port in your network, thereby eliminating the need to create a new profile from scratch.
• Changes to Port profile assignment workflow—You can no longer associate a VLAN profile to an interface. Instead, you must specify a VLAN profile while creating a Port profile and the Port profile can then be assigned to an interface. With this change, You can now assign VLANs based on the type of interface or designate VLANs as voice and native VLANs.
• Enhancements to search functionality—The search functionality in Network Director enables you to search for specific values in most of the tables available from the Network Director user interface. You can also use the wildcard character (*) to perform iterative search on each column in a table.
• Enhancements to monitoring and fault management—These enhancements to monitoring and fault management are provided:
  • Monitoring QFabric components such as directors, interconnects, and nodes.
  • Analyzing QFabric systems for health and connectivity.
  • Device fingerprinting (categorizing clients by criteria such as SSID and device type).
  • Locating end points on the network.
  • Session roaming history.
  • Real-time device statistics comparison.
  • Monitoring custom groups.
  • Mapping faults to top of rack nodes.

  You can now use monitoring and fault management for the following devices—WLC100 Wireless LAN Controller, JunosV Wireless LAN Controller (also referred to as WLC-V), EX4300 switches, EX9200 switches, QFX standalone devices

For information about these features, see the product documentation that is available from the Network Director user interface or see https://www.juniper.net/techpubs/.

Junos Space Network Management Platform Requirements

Network Director Release 1.5 is supported on Junos Space Network Management Platform Release 13.1P5. Network Director Release 1.5 is also supported on Junos Space Network Management Platform Release 13.1P1. However, with Junos Space Network Management Platform Release 13.1P1, you may not be able to perform the complete search functionality in Network Director.

Network Director API Release 1.5 is supported only on Junos Space Network Management Platform Release 13.1P5.

Network Director is supported on a Junos Space JA1500 Appliance or a Junos Space Virtual Appliance that meets the hardware requirements specified in the Junos Space documentation. It is not supported on a Junos Space instance running on a Juniper Networks NSM3000 appliance.

Supported Platforms for Network Director in Release 1.5

Table 1 lists the supported platforms and the corresponding qualified Junos OS releases, Mobility System Software (MSS) releases, or VMware releases:

Installation Instructions for Network Director Application and Network Director API, Release 1.5

Before you begin to install Network Director Release 1.5, ensure that the Network Management Platform is at the required release with the latest patch release installed. See Junos Space Network Management Platform Requirements for requirements information.

Note: If you have installed Network Director Release 1.5 Beta on the same Junos Space appliance, then you must uninstall it before installing Network Director Release 1.5.

Note: If you have Junos Space Virtual Control installed on your Junos Space Network Management Platform, you must uninstall it and run the clean up script before you install Network Director. You can download the cleanup script for Virtual Control from the Junos Space and Junos Space Network Director Download page.

The software image for Network Director Release 1.5 enables you to install Network Director and Network Director API together.

A prescribed order is always required for installation or upgrade of Network Director and Network Director API. Use the following table to determine the prescribed order of tasks for your installation or upgrade:

For detailed instructions about installing Network Director and Network Director API, see Network Director Quick Start Guide.

Junos Space DMI Schema Requirements for Network Director

In most installations, Junos Space automatically matches DMI schemas to device families. But there might be certain situations where your network uses a device for which Junos Space does not have the latest or supported schema available. In such instances, you must obtain and upload the requisite schema and set it as the default DMI schema for each device family. Set a default DMI schema for each device family to enable Junos Space to apply an appropriate schema to a device family.

Table 2 lists the latest DMI schema that you must obtain and upload in Junos Space before you start working on Network Director Release 1.5:

For detailed steps on acquiring and uploading the schema files, see the Junos Space Documentation or Managing DMI Schemas Overview.

Installation and Upgrade Scripts

• setupMySQLForND.pl—If you plan to manage more than 1000 devices or a multi-node cluster using Network Director. This script is available in the /var/www/cgi-bin directory of the Junos Space Virtual Machine.

  Navigate to this directory and run the script by typing
  perl setupMySQLForND.pl ’Number of Fabric Nodes in Space Cluster' 'Number of Devices (to be) Managed in ND’

  For example, type perl setupMySQLForND.pl 2 2500, if you have two fabric nodes and 2500 devices to manage from network Director.

• clean_vc_jobs.sh—If Junos Space Virtual Control is installed on the same Junos Space appliance on which you want to install Network Director Release 1.5, you must run this script after uninstalling Virtual Control, but before installing Network Director. This script is available for download from the Junos Space and Junos Space Network Director Download page

The README file for these scripts provide detailed steps about how to use these scripts.

Operational Notes on General Interface Use

• The minimum supported screen resolution is 1280 x 1024. If your screen resolution is less than the supported resolution, the Network Director UI might not be displayed properly. For example, icons might not be displayed on the Network Director banner, pages might appear truncated, or scroll bars might not work correctly.
• The supported Web browsers are Google Chrome version 17 and later, Mozilla Firefox version 14.0 and later, and Internet Explorer version 9.0 and 10.0.
• Network Director does not support cold migration of virtual machines. Cold migration is the migration of a virtual machine that is powered-off.
• You can log in directly to Network Director without logging in to the Network Management Platform first. To do so, use the URL:
  https://junos-space-host/networkdirector

  For example: https://10.20.30.40/networkdirector

  The default username and password are super and juniper123.

• If you have been logged in to Network Director for a long period of time, the connection to the server might be lost. Monitoring screens might be blank or you might not be able to access tasks. To resolve this, log out of Network Director and then log in again.
• Internet Explorer slows down because some scripts might take an excessive amount of time to run. The browser prompts the user to decide whether to continue running the slow script. Refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/175500 to fix this issue.
• If you receive Java exception error message when you perform an operation, retry the operation. The error condition is usually temporary and harmless.
• In large-scale environments, it might take some time for the network tree in the View pane to reflect changes such as newly discovered devices or newly created locations.

Operational Notes on Device Discovery and Management

• For Network Director to be able to discover and manage devices, the following protocol ports must be open between the Junos Space Network Management Platform server and the devices:
  • Port 22 for SSH connections. If you have changed the SSH port to a port other than port 22 on your Network Management Platform, you must change the SSH ports on your managed devices to the port that the Network Management Platform is using.
  • Port 443 for virtualization support. Use port 443 for outbound traffic to vCenter servers.
  • Port 10162 for SNMP traps. Network Director receives traps from managed devices on this port. (After you install Network Director, use Network Director to configure SNMP on your devices to send traps to Network Director on this port.)
  • Port 8889 for the management of wireless LAN controllers.
  • Port 21 (TCP) and port 69 (UDP) for uploading the software image and configuration file to the FTP server.

  You can verify that the ports are open to the devices by logging in to the Network Management Platform CLI and executing the nmap command. For example, to verify that port 8889 is open to a controller, enter:

  root@space# nmap <controller-ip-address> -p 8889

Known Issues in Network Director Release 1.5

The following are known issues in Network Director Release 1.5.

Known Limitations in Network Director Release 1.5

• Resynchronization feature for QFabric devices does not work as expected. When Junos Space runs in:
  • NSOR mode, for all the out-of-band and in-band changes, the QFabric device goes out-of-sync in Network Director. You must manually resynchronize the device each time, to make the device in sync.
  • SSOR Mode, reconciliation for QFarbic devices is not supported.
• Nonstop software upgrade (NSSU) for EX8200 Virtual Chassis and QFabric systems may not work as expected.
• The Data Center Port Profile Assignment page also displays EX4300 and EX9200 switches. Ensure that you do not assign profiles created for data center devices to these EX Series switches.
• Network Director supports Role-based Access Control (RBAC) only at the task category level. There is no support for object level or task level access control.
• The Network Director API supports running Junos Space in Space as System-of-Record (SSOR) mode only.
• Only user accounts with Admin privileges can use Network Director API.

Related Documentation

• Network Director
• Junos Space